China wants to buy S-400 anti-aircraft missile launchers from Russia, Vasily Kashin from the Center for Strategy and Technology Analysis told Interfax-AVN on Monday, January 16, 2012. "China has expressed its interest in buying S-400 systems. As far as I understand, Russia is reserved about this deal," he said.

Russian officials said many times that the deliveries of the new system, S-400 'Triumf', to foreign partners, among them China, would begun after the demand from the national armed forces was met in full. "Not only China but also some other countries are interested in this weapon. Yet our priority is domestic defense orders and the state armament program," the expert said.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its annual report last year that Russia wished to supply S-400 launchers, Ilyushin Il-476 transport jets and Sukhoi Su-33 ship-based jets to China at fair prices despite its concerns about the Chinese possible copying of defense technologies and prospective rivalry on the global market.

The S-400 'Triumf' of the Almaz-Antei Concern is built for highly efficient protection of key political, administrative, economic and military sites from air strikes, strategic, cruise, tactical and operative tactical ballistic missiles and medium-range ballistic missiles.

It can destroy air targets on the range of up to 250 kilometers and hits non-strategic ballistic missiles on the range of up to 60 kilometers.

The aerodynamic target destruction altitude varies from 0.01 to 27 kilometers, and the indicator is 2/7 for ballistic targets. The maximum speed of the destroyed target is 4,800 meters per second. The system simultaneously locks on 6 targets with 72 missiles. It takes five minutes to deploy the system.